


Two Seats

by Blink_Blue



Series: Tumblr Prompts (MacDennis) [3]
Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Angst, Borderline Personality Disorder, Episode: s10e06 The Gang Misses the Boat, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 04:34:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11593047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blink_Blue/pseuds/Blink_Blue
Summary: Dennis has some feelings he wants to get off his chest.





	Two Seats

It’s an easy night after a rough day. A few shots along with ham soaked in rum and more cigarettes than he’d like to admit, and it gets easier to forget his car stuck in the river and the tall, beautiful brunette with a liking for angel dust. At the end of the night, Dennis and Mac find themselves alone in Dee’s living room and there are some things Dennis decides he just can’t let go.

“You called her the love of your life,” Dennis murmurs softly, kicking the carpet gently under his feet.

There’s a long pause before Mac finally looks up. There’s something in his eyes that looks strangely like fear. “I thought we didn’t have to talk about it?”

Yeah, maybe that’s what Dennis implied earlier. But by now, he’s completely plastered on rum ham, and his earlier words don’t hold much substance anymore. “Some pretty serious words, don’t you think? The love of your life…”

“Well, I obviously didn’t mean it,” Mac chuckles awkwardly, avoiding his gaze. “She really wasn’t all that.”

Dennis rolls his eyes at Mac’s excuses. The other man started making more and more of them as the years had gone by. He never believed a single one of them. “You don’t think you’re just lying to yourself?” He asks casually. “Or are you just okay with it?”

“Dennis…” Mac sighs heavily, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes.

“I know it’s easier if… we don’t ask questions and I just let you go about your business…” Dennis bites his lip as he ponders the other man. Mac won’t meet his eye, he just gazes at a spot on the far wall. “But the truth is… sometimes I think about it… our lives,” he clarifies softly. “I know there’s things you’d rather not talk about. Maybe because you’re not ready.”

Mac tries to ignore the flush rising in his cheeks. He can almost blame it on the alcohol in his system.

“I just…” Dennis sighs as lets his shoulders sag. After the long day he’s had, there’s a heavy weight on him that’s he’s desperate to be rid of. “I don’t want to think about what I’d be like without you.”

Mac looks up in surprise, like Dennis had said the last thing he’d been expecting. And maybe it’s because Dennis had never spoken about his reliance on the other man. Nowadays, he hardly has anything good to say to him at all. But in just the short amount of time they spent apart… Dennis realizes it wasn’t just the gang he missed, it was  _Mac._

“I didn’t… I didn’t think it mattered to you so much,” Mac crinkles his brow in confusion.

“Well, apparently it does,” Dennis replies softly. A part of him hates himself for it. Admitting his dependence is borderline admitting weakness. There’s nothing he hates more than weakness. Not only did he fail to control his anger, but his disappointment in himself for repeatedly losing his cool was only compounded by the fact that he genuinely can’t function without the other man. And that’s not a truth he wants to face.

On any other day, he’d be furious and confused and maybe a little hurt. But now it feels like he’s simply run out of steam. He’s too tired to care, and for some reason he needs Mac to understand what he’s feeling. What he learned today, is that there are some things he can’t blame on the gang.

“Sometimes I don’t like who I am. But you seem to like me, so…” Dennis shrugs and continues softly, “I don’t know… makes it easier I guess.”

Mac’s brow is furrowed. There’s a lot that Mac doesn’t understand about the way Dennis’ emotions work. Then again, Dennis had never been generous with the specifics. He hardly understands it himself.

There are days when the emptiness inside him threatens to swallow him whole. Sometimes the dullness of the days will stretch into weeks of not  _feeling,_ until it reaches a point where he’s numb to the numbness and he’s just existing. Not living. Then without warning, the pendulum swings to the other end, and suddenly he’s feeling too much. The slightest inconvenience will set him off and he’s screaming at the world around him, screaming his throat raw for everything to just stop.

Mac doesn’t get it. How could he? He doesn’t get any of it. But he’s there.

Somehow, that helps.

“Well… I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Mac eventually says softly.

Dennis swallows and looks up to meet Mac’s eyes. “Thank you,” he whispers.

Mac nods and bites his lip. A moment passes and Dennis gets a crazed image in his head.  _An Alfa Romeo. Two seats, just me and a babe. Just me and a babe._ Would it be so bad if he replaced the faceless, busty chick in his fantasy with a familiar face? A guy with shitty tattoos and slicked back hair… A guy that brings with him a warm feeling of home and comfort, and never fails to make him smile. Would that really be so bad?

The moment ends when Mac murmurs, “I’m heading to bed, Den.” He drops to the floor and messes with the sleeping bag that’s been his make shift bed for the past few months. 

Dennis watches him with a hint of a smile on his face at the old nickname. There’s a deep longing in his gut. An ache. And he used to think he knew what he wanted. There’s an ideal in his head that he strives towards, an image of himself that he sees and wants the world to see. And though he’d never admit that reality doesn’t quite live up to the vision in his head, sometimes reality sneaks up on him with a sharp smack in the face.

The rum ham is slowly settling in his stomach and he thinks maybe it’s time for him to retire as well.

Maybe his life hasn’t exactly gone the way he would have liked. Maybe none of it is ideal, and he’s stuck in this endless rut with his best friends and his sister, running a shitty bar in Philly, getting older and never reaching the level of success he’d imagined for himself years and years ago. It’s a rare moment of clarity when he can admit these things to himself.

He’s so close. Just a step further and maybe he could admit that there’s a person in his life that he wants more with.  _Two seats, just me and a babe._ But he’s not quite there yet.

On a deeper level, Dennis acknowledges that he needs Mac. Needs him like a lifeline on a sinking boat. He’s not better off without him.

But they could have more. They could be more. If only they both weren’t too stubborn to admit it.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi! ([x](http://winters-blue-children.tumblr.com))


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